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Andy Mann

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In the spring of 2015, National Geographic Resident Explorer and my good friend, Mike Libecki, called me and said he had an idea to climb a remote tower in the jungle of Ua Pou Island, French Polynesia. “There will be moments that you wish you never came,” he said. Oddly enough, that was exactly what my filming partner Keith Ladzinski and I wanted to hear, as the best expeditions usually hold a good bit of struggle. Plus, Libecki has a knack for finding the most unexplored and uncharted climbing locations on the planet and being the first to summit. For this expedition, Libecki enlisted Angie Payne to be his climbing partner. Payne, after a successful trip to Greenland with Libecki in 2012, made the mistake of telling Libecki she would go on any “crackpot” mission he ever conjured up. The only issue was that Payne had never climbed a big wall before. But Libecki wasn’t looking for climbers as much as he was looking for people that could take the suffering. In that way, we were all a perfect fit. We set out on the 21-day mission this March, and after 16 days of debris-filled climbing in horrible conditions, Libecki led us to the summit of Poumaka in a tropical storm. Photo: Libecki and Payne with unknown pitches and struggle above them.
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A 16-Day First Ascent Sufferfest

“There will be moments that you wish you never came,” said Libecki.

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